One thing that BlackBerry users have come to love over the years of owning a BlackBerry smartphone is the ability to control music with the volume keys. Almost from day one, on a BlackBerry smartphone you’ve been able to skip tracks or go back a track using the volume up and down keys. With the introduction of BlackBerry 10 and the increased focus on media, one would expect this feature to be there. While it is it isn’t enabled by default, don't worry - it's still there. Continue reading to learn how to enable the music shortcuts on your new BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

How to enable music shortcuts on BlackBerry 10

From your BlackBerry 10 device home screen swipe down on the top bezel to reveal the system menu, then tap settings.

Once in the system settings you’ll want to tap on the system volume menu.

You should now be on the system volume page, from here turn on the “music shortcuts” toggle.

Once you’ve completed these steps you’re on your way to controlling the music playback on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone just by holding down the volume up, or the volume down keys.

I love this feature. I'm glad it was carried over from older BBOS. I use this at night in bed when my girlfriend is sleeping. I don't have to light up the bedroom by turning on my phone to simply skip a track! I've been using an Android phone, and I really missed this feature.

I would imagine the reason BB decided to not make this the default setting would be to alleviate any confusion for new users to the platform. Imagine coming from an ios device to the Z10 and not being able to figure out why tracks keep skipping when you put the device in your pocket. I think it was a smart decision to make it a "power user" option.

I think that's stupid. They should have enabled it by default. That is a distingusing factor for BB from the other platforms. Why are they trying to be everyone else, when there's is clearly better? #annoyed

Why can't you skip songs with the Premium Blackberry Headset's call answer button? I love being able to use that to skip forward (2 clicks) or skip backwards (3 clicks) when I'm running or have the phone in my pockets.

The iPhone/iPod allows you to do that, and that's always been my favorite feature. The volume-rocker method doesn't work well at all on my BB9700 (or rather, it works TOO well - whenever I want to increase/decrease volume I end up changing songs).

It's a good feature they've kept from BB7 but why haven't they kept other more important features like the equaliser? This article mentioned that BlackBerry 10 is focusing on media like music so surely it would make sense to the software designers to add an equaliser?

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